MSI GT70 - issue with screen going blank

I have a GT70, with Windows 8.1, GTX 680M (bought from Gentech, great company by the way to buy laptops from), and have been having this odd issue that is driving me crazy. Running NVIDIA drivers - 331.65

I have setup GEFORCE experience so that the default video card is the GTX 680, not the Intel integrated graphics that come with the laptop. I also made sure that for my games (BF3, BF4, Neverwinter Online, etc.), that the default video card to be used is set to the GTX 680M....however....

Especially when I start up BF4, the screen just goes black. I can hear the sound from the game, but the laptop screen is just black. I can alt-tab out, or ctrl-alt-delete, and the sound goes away, but the screen stays black. Only way I can get an actual image on the screen is to either restart, or put the laptop into sleep (hit the power button), and then bring it back out. By then though I have to reset the game.

Again, only seems to happen in games, and BF4 is the one I'm playing the most now, so it happens mostly there. Doesn't happen every time I start the game, but more than half the time I'd estimate. I am assuming that something is happening when the GTX 680M is trying to kick in and start running a game that is "demanding" like BF4, but I wonder if there is some setting or something somewhere that is causing the screen to just go black.

To be clear, when this issue doesn't happen and BF4 starts up fine with the image, game plays great, smoothly, with no issues. I am not using any overclocking/afterburner setup (at least I've not knowingly set something like that up).

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I'll be happy to provide additional information if that will help.

thank you

 

That's an odd situation...here's something I ran into on the GT60 3K...this may or may not have anything to do with what you're experiencing. After upgrading to 8.1, I had a number of graphic anomalies. Spoke with Ken at GenTech and he told me that MSI said if you don't uninstall the default 8.1 video drivers for Intel and Nvidia in Safe Mode...then reinstall the new drivers off the MSI page, you will have problems. Here's the official MSI FAQ about a similar issue:

MSI Global – FAQ

I also know that BF4 is extremely fickle about video drivers. I couldn't get it to launch without installing the "Game Ready" newest driver from Nvidia's site. But, it wasn't an occasional crash for me...wouldn't run at all until I installed the new driver.

Just a thought that you might want to boot into Safe Mode and uninstall all video drivers...then reinstall updated drivers and see if that fixes your issue. Hope this helps.

 

thanks. Will try that out to see if it works....

 

Update Intel driver 15.31.17.3257:
Win7/8/8.1 x64

Update nVidia driver 331.65:
Win7/8/8.1 x64